Our interests were piqued when a client approached our practice wanting to explore the potential for how a 120m2, 1960s mid-century apartment could be reworked to support their current aesthetic, serving as an inner city alternative to their previous substantial family home.
This renovation of an 80 year old modernist apartment was for a couple who believed that with the right design they could replace their beautifully appointed family residence with a lifestyle less reliant on cars in an area walking distance to work, having a smaller carbon footprint. Their brief called for a feeling of spaciousness and uncompromised quality.
To create a beach house that formed a series of spaces that could be utilised by a multi-generational family. The pavilion style arrangement needed a connectivity, while still remaining separate from one another. The buildings were placed to maximise ocean views, as well as provide a protected courtyard for entertaining.
Our Ruskin Street Residence was designed for one of the now adult children of one of our earliest residential commissions over twenty-five years ago.
While smaller than our usual projects it is a very special outcome that is very representative of the sentiments behind many of our projects.
The front six rooms of the Edwardian heritage listed terrace was retained and extensively renovated to a new house standard. Rooms were reorganised to accommodate three bedrooms with bathrooms and robes, the existing details modified to accolade the new layouts as if they had always been there.
The Atrium of Holy Angels Mausoleum is located in one of Melbourne’s major urban cemeteries, Fawkner Memorial Park in Sydney Road Fawkner, which is managed by the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust. The Trust commissioned Harmer Architecture to design the mausoleum as a fourth stage to the nearby Holy Angels Mausoleum complex also designed by Harmer Architecture.
The mausoleum provides above ground burial for 672 people within in situ concrete crypts which are arranged on top of each other on 6 levels and in eight separate blocks located around a central landscaped courtyard.
The Panopticon House project is a hybrid of modernist and classical rural villa ideals, exploring the house as figured object versus the disappearing enclosure. Located in rural Victoria, on a prominent hilltop with panoramic views across the surrounding landscape, the Great Southern Ocean, Bass Strait and the Tasman Ocean. The site and program recall the classical villa however a key element of the client brief was to minimize interruption to the views of the surrounding landscape. The house was in effect to become a device for seeing out – a ‘Panopticon’, whose primary function was that of observation.
Jeremy Bentham’s original 18th century Panopticon has been used as a model for a wide range of institutional buildings, including the reading room of the Victorian State library. However, was latter criticized by Michel Foucault and others as mechanism for manifesting and reinforcing power imbalances. In the context however, the relationship between the observer/observed, is that between architecture/landscape, emphasizing the potential of architecture as a device for seeing. This desire recalls the Farnsworth house, itself arguably a continuation of the classical villa tradition – however with the critical departure of the introduction of the ‘free plan’ into the villa type and the ambition of dissolving the relationship between interiority and exteriority. Located on the highest point on the site, the Panopticon House adopts these strategies, elongating and folding the free plan back on itself to provide panoramic views in all directions, while capturing a central courtyard providing shelter from prevailing winds on the exposed site.
Inspired by our client’s brief for a minimalist, tranquil residence hidden away from the surrounding city, Modscape worked with the existing structure and added a new extension that would increase the amount of natural light and fresh air entering the house and provide an open living area with an intimate master retreat above.
Before work began, this Victorian‐era house in Albert Park, Victoria, had closed‐off, compartmentalized rooms with a tacked on, lean‐to extension resulting in a lack of light, ventilation and outdoor connection. Modscape set about transforming it into a lightfilled, airy space with generous proportions.
The site was purchased by an author seeking a tree change having lived in inner city Melbourne for many years. The dwelling is part of a larger project to re-imagine and revitalize the underworked paddock into a place of habitation, connection and reflection. The site slopes in north south direction and have been sculptured into subtly undulations from surface water that seeps through the ground from the adjacent Springhill. The dwelling is sited towards the high point of the site adjacent an outcrop of granite that forms an imperceptible rise to the north of the building site, offering both a foreground for aspect from the dwelling and obscuring view and noise from the road.
The clients’ brief was clear and simple: a semi-permanent residence – something more than a weekender – for a couple, their dog and sporadic visitors. The site, located in Somers and virtually on the beach, offers panoramic views across Western Port Bay. Somers is a small beachside town established in the 1920s, stretching from the Coolart Wetlands to the Cerberus Naval Base on the Mornington Peninsula. Although just one hour’s drive from Melbourne, the area is still a relatively low key holiday place, characterised by elevated modernist fibro houses, unfenced gardens and native bushland vegetation.
Modernist Wonderland is a refurb to a yellow brick 60’s double storey gem for a Greek-Australian family – opa!!!!! It’s a colourful celebration and opening of the existing space, playful adaptation of original materials and embellishment of an optimistic era. Small spaces we decompartmentalised to create a space big enough for 80-person Christmas festivities. The large curved island bench was a nod to the families love of lamb cutlets and it seemed appropriate to couple with a brass bar element.
The Brace house was a process of retaining and celebrating the existing architectural language of a double fronted Victorian terrace whilst transforming the remainder of the dwelling into an adaptable, contemporary, modern family home.
Located in the significant heritage precinct area of Albert Park, meant that it was crucial not to denounce but rather celebrate the classic Victorian terrace home. The opportunity to design a home with two different architectural styles working harmoniously, while staying individually dignified was paramount.
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